Calls for politicians and journalists to display their conflicts of interest

People in the UK can be suspicious of journalists and politicians. These people are supposed to look out for our interests. Sometimes, however, it’s not in their interest to do so:

Sky News anchor (who also happens to be a landlord) decides to turn an interview about housing policy into an irrelevant and patronising rant about her tenants https://t.co/ITlohPAVip

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) April 15, 2019

This is why people are now calling for journalists and politicians to list their sponsors / conflicts of interest on their clothing.

Who funds you?

The woman pushing for this explained:

When Lewis Hamilton does a race in his go-fast cars, I can see exactly who’s sponsoring him. The same can’t be said of politicians. But why? Surely these businesses want people to know they’re sponsoring politicians? Unless the benefits they get from the deal are best kept hush hush.

The Tory MP Liz Truss argued against this:

Look… this is a silly idea. I mean – yeah – so maybe I have taken several donations from the British cheese industry. That’s not why I go on and on about cheese, though. I just really like cheese, okay? I just really like cheese!

Chuka Umunna said:

Forcing politicians to announce their sponsors puts us at an obvious disadvantage. It’s bad enough our rivals have popular policies – they can’t have it all their own way.

Bought and sold

Of course, there is an alternative to the proposal. It’s a bit wacky, but politicians could – and hear me out on this – not take money from corporate interests at all.

Such a move would likely prompt many MPs to quit. On the plus side, such a move would likely prompt many MPs to quit.

Featured image via Pixabay (image was altered)